Rome: just resilience in a large and complex capital city
Rome is the capital of Italy and one of Europe’s largest and most historically significant urban territories. Located in central Italy, around 25 kilometres from the Tyrrhenian Sea, the city combines flat and hilly areas, the Tiber River, a Mediterranean climate, dense urban neighbourhoods, historic fabric, coastal exposure and large metropolitan responsibilities.
With around 2.87 million residents, and more than 3 million usual city users including people who live, work or study in Rome without being formally resident, Rome faces climate adaptation challenges at a very large scale. The city is divided into fifteen municipalities, each comparable in size to a medium-sized Italian city, while the Metropolitan City of Rome includes 121 municipalities in the surrounding area.
In JUST4CARE, Rome acts as a Replicant City within the Community of Practice, bringing the perspective of a large capital where climate risks, infrastructure, mobility, heritage, social inequality and metropolitan governance intersect.
Rome overview and replication context
Rome has strong mirror potential with several JUST4CARE pilot cities.
Like Madrid, Budapest and Zagreb, it faces intensifying heat and urban heat-island effects in densely built areas with limited vegetation. Like Çankaya and other cities working on water resilience, Rome is increasingly affected by heavy rainfall, flooding and changing precipitation patterns. Like Zagreb, it must also consider how climate adaptation interacts with historic urban fabric and cultural heritage.
Its size and governance complexity make Rome especially relevant for exploring how just climate resilience can be coordinated across different municipal levels and diverse neighbourhood realities.
Rome climate and justice challenges
Rome is experiencing rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, longer dry periods and more intense rainfall events. These changes are already visible in flooding caused by heavy rain, disruptions to underground, regional and surface public transport, traffic interruptions in underpasses and roads, and the need for civil protection services to protect people and property.
The city also faces more frequent strong wind events, storm surges along the coast, heatwaves, drought and worsening air quality. These hazards affect people differently depending on age, health, housing conditions, income, occupation and access to safe and comfortable spaces.
Heatwaves and urban heat islands are especially dangerous for older people, people with chronic illnesses, young children, pregnant women and outdoor workers. Flooding and heavy rainfall can affect neighbourhoods with sealed soil, inadequate drainage or limited capacity to prepare and recover. People with low incomes, people experiencing homelessness and residents living in precarious or poorly adapted housing may have fewer resources to protect themselves.
Water scarcity and reduced air quality also create broader health challenges, especially where urban environments lack sufficient vegetation, shade or cool public spaces.
Rome alignment with JUST4CARE
Rome’s climate adaptation challenge is closely aligned with JUST4CARE’s just resilience objectives. The city needs to prepare for climate scenarios that could increase risks to people, infrastructure, public spaces, buildings, mobility and the local economy.
JUST4CARE offers a framework for approaching this adaptation challenge through justice: identifying who is more exposed, understanding who has less capacity to cope, involving communities and local actors in decision-making, and using data-informed tools to support fairer prioritisation.
For Rome, the project is an opportunity to strengthen inclusive approaches to resilience and to ensure that adaptation initiatives benefit the people and places that need them most.
Rome replication objective
Through JUST4CARE, Rome aims to improve how the city identifies and understands vulnerability, anticipates long-term climate impacts and connects this knowledge to policy formulation.
Rome is particularly interested in learning how to reach people and groups who are most exposed to climate risks but may be less visible in conventional participation processes. The city also sees value in exploring lessons around finance and resource allocation, so that adaptation can be better targeted and more equitable.
What Rome brings to the Community of Practice
Rome brings the experience of a large, complex capital city where climate adaptation must work across multiple scales: neighbourhoods, municipalities, metropolitan governance, infrastructure systems, historic areas and coastal exposure.
Its contribution to the JUST4CARE Community of Practice is to test how just resilience principles can be applied in a city where climate risks are diverse, social vulnerability is unevenly distributed and governance coordination is essential.
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